From: Gwen Goertzel (ben@goertzel.org)
Date: Thu Jan 31 2002 - 09:52:49 MST
Sure, but not everyone has theories to finish, nor do they want to. The
human race is not primarily composed of theorists or scientists.
Some people like *who they are* and they see that uploading would transform
them into *someone/something very different* (even if one grants continuity
of consciousness). They don't want to become so different. They figure: If
I'm going to become a totally new kind of being, then why bother, why not
just let this "me" die and let there be *another* new being without any
continuity of consciousness from me.
In the Buddhist view, the need for a human mind to have continuity of
consciousness with an upload it creates
is just a form of "worldly attachment." The view is that we should not be
so attached to our individual stream of consciousness, our personal self, so
as to feel the need to hold onto it in that way.
I agree that the Buddhist view, like all world-views, is largely a product
of human reality which is full of death and suffering (and life and joy).
But I also wonder: To my upload 10000 years from now, how much will it
matter that it had some kind of "continuity of consciousness" with a meat
puppet named "Ben Goertzel" way back in the flesh ages??
-- Ben G
****
My nightmare scenario:
Student 1: "It's too bad Uncle Rob didn't live until they solved the
problems
of immortality."
Student 2: "Yeh, if only he could have held on for another 800 years. The
cure was just around the corner. Then he would have had plenty of time to
finish his theories."
Student 1: "Yep. Well, I have to get back to this report, it's due in 3
millennia, and I've barely started. It's about time I graduated, 5 million
years in school is just too long."
800 years. Just another 800 years....
****
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